


And Remember

by that_one_british_alien_from_doctor_who (nancynotruth)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe: No Echo Claras, Alternate expiation for Echo Clara Oswald, As in Clara's dead but still out there exploring, Canonical Character Death, Carona Virus Mention, Clara's already dead, ENJOY!!!, Each chapter can be read as a standalone, Episode: s07e01 Asylum of the Daleks, F/M, I'll be updating this as I watch more episodes with Clara!, Light Angst, Spoilers for basically all of seasons 7-9, Stay Safe People, Tags May Change, covid-19 mention, quarantine mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23750341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nancynotruth/pseuds/that_one_british_alien_from_doctor_who
Summary: Despite, or maybe because of, her best intentions, Clara's path keeps crossing the Doctor's, but never at the brief (to an undead, eleven thousand year old girl with a TARDIS) moment in time after he meets her and before he forgets. All she can do is help him, save him, and remind him:"Run, you clever boy. And remember."
Relationships: Clara Oswin Oswald/Danny Pink, Eleventh Doctor & Clara Oswin Oswald, Eleventh Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald, Twelfth Doctor & Clara Oswin Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	And Remember

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Giving In](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15753525) by [Rhoda_Writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhoda_Writes/pseuds/Rhoda_Writes). 



“It’s been eleven thousand years. Possibly twelve. I’ve seen somewhere over a million planets, billions of life forms, and well over fifty thousand Taco Bells. Food runs are really boring, compared to all the other planets I’ve been to, but Me’s got these cravings and she says I don’t make it the same. I have been trying soufflés though, recently, and Me says they’re palatable, which means that they’re totally epic.” 

“I told you not to talk about me in your stupid little recordings!” 

“Well, you write about me in your diaries, yeah? And you’re the only person I see on a regular basis, so of course I’m gonna mention you.” 

“Not a person anymore, Clara. And Taco Bell is delicious.” 

“Shut up, Me. I’m recording!” Clara pointed dramatically at her record player. Me huffed and pushed the hammock lightly, sending both hammock and Clara, spinning off the TARDIS’ porch and towards the crab nebula. Clara rolled her eyes and lazily pushed a button above her head, firing up the booster rockets and cruising slowly back to the TARDIS. 

“One day,” She said once there was enough air to speak, “You’re going to do that near a black hole and you won’t be able to catch me in time.” 

“I won’t even try to catch you.” 

“She really likes me,” Clara told the recording box. “She just has to keep up appearances.” 

“So, where to next?” Me asked, tying off a perfectly straight seam. “I was thinking I might drop these off in 2020.” 

“Look at Lady Me, making masks!” Clara said, clicking off her recording and rolling to the edge of the hammock. “Such a philanthropist.” 

“Shut up, Impossible.” 

  
“Yeah, I keep wondering. Why’d he call me that?” Clara asked, leaning her head on her hand and scrunching her chin up in thought. 

“Because you’re impossibly annoying?” 

“You know what? Just for that, we will go to 2020. And you can get swept up in a mass panic while I join that spaceship crew, just to get away from you.” 

“You’re going to join the Alaska?” Me laughed. It was wrong, somehow, hearing her laugh. Made Clara’s stomach feel all funny. “Don’t you know what happens to the Alaska?” 

“No,” Clara said defiantly, sitting up fully and crossing her arms. “And whatever happens, maybe it’ll change with me onboard. I am a total screaming genus.” 

“Alright,” Me said, with that odd sparkle still in her eye. “But you’d best thank me when I rescue you.” 

  
“Sure. I’ll thank you. And then I’ll go and have a hug with Missy, and the Doctor will remember who I am.” 

Me just shrugged. 

When the ship crashed on the Dalek asylum, Clara assumed that Me would come along any time. When she’d barricaded herself in her room and listened to the same record a few hundred times, she assumed that Me had just set the dials a few months in advance. Whatever, she could wait. 

When she’d been there for over a hundred days, and her soufflés still weren’t improving, and she was still listening to the same record (Love is a Rebellious Bird, was the title’s translation. After everything that had happened with Danny and the Doctor and the Raven, it seemed rather appropriate. Maybe Clara had to remind herself of the past, so she could reconnect to the person she used to be, when she was alive. Or maybe she was just an undead masochist), she thought that maybe Me had waited so long that she’d actually died. 

“Day 363. Me, where are you? I’ve half a mind to exterminate you myself. Are you trying to teach me a lesson about quarantine? Because honestly, I would’ve just stayed in 2020. Fewer Daleks. The Doctor never would’ve left me alone this long if he’d remembered who I am.” Clara paused and took a couple of deep breaths, the sensation grounding her even though her body no longer needed the oxygen. “Actually, you know what? If you ever listen to this, I don’t want you to know that you got to me, so I’m just going to start over. Day 363…” 

When the Doctor’s voice broke into her prison, over the sound of Carmen and the Daleks, she had to clench her hand to keep herself from crying, screaming at the Doctor that it was _her,_ it was _Clara,_ and she loved him _so much._ But he wasn’t with her yet. He was with an angry woman with angry eyeshadow and a timid man with no eyeshadow. Pond. 

He still didn’t know who she was. 

She tried to like them, as she steered them through the Dalek asylum. It was true, Rory did remind her of Nina, and she had _really_ liked Nina. And Amy seemed lovely, but she did yell quite a lot, and it was a bit of an idiotic move to lose her bracelet, which seemed really important for reasons Clara kept forgetting. And she was so mean to the Doctor, and she slapped Nina. 

Honestly, Clara didn’t like Amy all that much. 

But the Doctor did. Right now, he liked Amy better than he liked her. 

_But he didn’t go back for Amy,_ she reminded herself. _He went back for me._

Maybe that didn’t mean what she wanted it to mean. Maybe he’d loved Amy enough to let her go. 

She called herself Oswin, because it was a familiar name, one of the memories about this Doctor, her first Doctor, that had stuck with her through all those thousands of years. Oswald for the win! 

But this time, it didn’t feel much like she was winning. 

She’d asked the Doctor to come for her, not because she was afraid of dying. She’d done it once, and it really hadn’t been all that bad. No, she wanted the Doctor to come after her so that Angry and Nina could have a moment alone, and she could make the Doctor’s first meeting with her special. That’s why she hadn’t shown herself on any of the screens. The most important person in her life was about to meet her for the first time, and she didn’t want that to happen over a screen. 

She even wiped the Dalek’s memories for him, with the skills he gave her. Just to see that chin again, to see him smile at her. The girl who saved him. His impossible girl. And maybe, this time, after she left to rejoin Me, he would remember her. 

And then he had to ask her where she got the eggs, and this time _she_ was the one who had forgotten something very important. 

Wouldn’t Missy have just loved to see her despair channeled through the Dalek’s mainframe, creeping into her mind, almost killing the Doctor before he ever met her? Oh, she’d have laughed, and called Clara ‘pet,’ and tried to kill her with a very sharp stick. 

She must really be going crazy, because for a second she almost wished Missy would show up. Just so there would be someone who knew who she was. 

It surprised her a bit, when she heard herself say “I am human” and it didn’t come out “I am a Dalek” in that horrible, tinny voice. But then she realized that this time, she wasn’t a human inside a Dalek. This time, she _was_ the Dalek. 

“Run, you clever boy,” she said. Because this Doctor was her clever boy, not her silly old man. He was her first love, discounting Nina and Andrew and Liza and….well, she had loved him. “And remember.” _Until you forget._

She watched him until he teleported away, until the planet exploded, until the familiar white, cubed walls of the control room of her restaurant materialized around her. 

“IT TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH!” Said the Dalek in the middle of the TARDIS. 

“You’re lucky I came back for you at all, idiot,” Me said, almost fondly, connecting various wires to the outside of Clara’s shell as Clara began to hack away from the inside. “Maybe you’re the real hybrid, all by yourself.” 

“Maybe you’re a really awful friend who left me alone inside a Dalek inside a Dalek insane asylum for nearly a year,” Clara retorted. 

“I happened to know that the Doctor was dropping by,” Me turned to the Tardis console and pushed a complicated sequence of buttons. “Thought you might want to say hello.” 

“Me! Do you know how incredibly stupid that is?” Clara angrily turned seventeen buttons and pushed a leaver. “We could’ve ripped space and time apart.” 

“I’ve read the Doctor’s biography in the 67th century. I knew that he met you here already.” Me turned a final dial and pushed the wibbley leaver to maximum. The Dalek’s casing opened, and Clara tumbled out and onto the floor. 

“Really?” She asked, breathing hard even though she hadn’t needed oxygen for far longer than she had. 

“Maybe,” Me said, smiling a bit, and Clara relaxed because this wasn’t her nice smile. She couldn’t handle being turned into a Dalek and Me becoming a nice person on the same day. “But the universe hasn’t fallen apart. Yet.” 

“You know,” Clara said, reaching up to touch her ponytail. “I think I might try growing my hair out. It looked pretty good on me in my mind.” 

“Or you might consider getting a wig,” Me said, swinging around a screen so that Clara saw herself reflected in it like a mirror. “Hair doesn’t actually grow after you die. And vanity isn’t becoming.” 

“I don’t know,” Clara said, turning her face this way and that. “I think I look quite good for twelve thousand years.” 

“You’re only 32,” Me said dismissively. “ _I’m_ Twelve thousand.” 

“Oh, shut up and take me to a nice hair salon,” Clara snapped. 

“Fine, but only if it’s near a Taco Bell.” 

“Whatever. You know my order.” 

**Author's Note:**

> That was so much fun to write, and I hope it was fun for you to read! Please let me know if you liked it by leaving kudos or comments, because they really and truly make me happier than anything else. 
> 
> Please, stay safe out there! Wash your hands. Check out my other fics, if you like. Love you all xxx


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